Elizabeth Lord

Elizabeth Lord (left), Edith Schryver (Right). WHC Collections 2011.037.1211

A diminutive, but adult, young lady traveling to Europe by ship was placed by mistake at the Children’s Table in the Dining Salon. When she requested a glass of wine and was refused, Edith Schryver insisted on being moved to another table. There she met Elizabeth Lord who would become her lifetime companion and partner in one of the pioneer landscaping firms of the Northwest, Lord and Schryver.  

Elizabeth Lord’s inspiration for pursuing a career in gardening was her mother, Juliet, who founded Salem Floral Society in 1915. The society, now called the Salem Garden Club, was Oregon’s first organization dedicated to floral gardening.

 After her mother’s death in 1924, Lord attended Lawthrope School of Landscape Architecture in Groton, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Lord, like Edith Schryver, traveled overseas to pursue further study in garden design. The friends traveled and studied together for several months in England and on the continent. At the end of their trip Lord brought Schryver to Salem, her hometown.

According to a brochure published by the Gaiety Hill/ Bush’s Pasture Park Historical District, “The 1929 founding of the firm of Lord and Schryver in Salem is considered one of the milestones in the history of Northwest garden design, as Lord and Schryver were the first women landscape architects in the Northwest. For the next four decades, the partners designed and supervised work in Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland.” (In Salem, Lord and Schryver are known for their work at the historic Deepwood estate among other commissions.)” Though the volume of work was comparatively small, the quality was consistently high. [They] brought to Oregon an intellectual Eastern command of craft and style, combined with an instructive sense of landscape taste otherwise unknown in Oregon during this period.”

Lord was Chairperson of the Willamette Valley Division of the State Federation of Garden Clubs. She continued her public service as a member of the Salem Garden Club where she was responsible for the plantings at Salem’s Marion County Courthouse.

Elizabeth Lord, landscape architect. WHC Collections 2007.001.0659

 In 1937 she was appointed to the Salem Parks Board where she struggled with an inadequate budget and the problems of Englewood, Willson, and Pringle Parks. Lord served on the Parks Board for nine years and also served on the Salem Parks Advisory Committee. As Chairperson of Salem’s Tree Committee she fought for a curbside tree planting program which included city responsibility for the upkeep of trees in residential areas. 

Elizabeth Lord was a member of state’s Capitol Planning Commission from 1949 to 1963. She was especially involved with the landscaping of the Capitol Mall and the salvage of Capitol Park’s old plantings after the Columbus Day storm in 1962.

During her tenure as a board member and president of the Salem Art Association, Lord assisted in the purchase of historic furnishings for the Bush House, a city landmark managed by the association. From 1952 to 1968 she was responsible for landscaping the historic Minthorn House in Newberg, boyhood home of United States president Herbert Hoover. 

Elizabeth Lord once said, “Salem people have never seemed to realize the great privilege we possess to make the city one of the outstandingly beautiful cities in our country.” Although Lord died in 1975 at the age of 88 (followed by Edith Schryver in 1984,) her presence is with us today in the continuing gifts of natural beauty found in the residential gardens, neighborhood parks, and public areas designed by Lord and Schryver.

Compiled by Virginia Green

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Bibliography:

We are indebted to Ruth Roberts for this story of Elizabeth and Edith’s meeting.

Biographical information about Elizabeth Lord’s achievements have been taken from an article in Panegyric II, a publication of the Mission Mill Museum, Inc., January 13, 1973.

This article originally appeared on the original Salem Online History site and has not been updated since 2006.